Sweethearts
by MonPetitLoupDeMort
Summary: Can some simple candy help Raven get over her cold, and Beast Boy say what needs to be said And what about Rob and Star, and a perpetually disappearing Cy? It's amazing just how far a little colored piece of heart shaped sugar with a saying on it can go.


Sorry for the long time with no updates, I just got over a major dose of apathy in just about everything. Teen Titans is my new 'obsession', especialy pairings in TT. I was eating Sweethearts candies, watching Jeopardyand this fic just struck me.

This will be either a one-shot or three-shot happening at the same time thingy.

Thanks for sticking with me, updates to Cultural Exchange coming soon, Most Deadly Poisons currently on hold. Sorry againif I didn't get back to you on reviews, I do much appreciate the support.

Now, enjoy!

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Ah, sweet Valentine's Day at Titan's Tower.

"Achoo!"

The muffled sound of a sneeze echoed around the, for once, relatively silent common room.

"Dude! Who's sick? 'Fess up, I don't wanna get germs. Chicken pox was bad enough." Beast Boy said, nervously darting glances about the room.

"You're just paranoid B; someone sneezing doesn't necessarily mean they're sick." Cyborg tried to reason.

"Then why would they hide it? Unless they're sick and don't want us to know." Beast Boy replied.

Cyborg had to admit that what Beast Boy said made some sense, not that he would say it out loud though.

"Yeah, and maybe freaky aliens are infiltrating the tower, and sneezing is their way of communicating. Get real, you're only making a big deal about this so you can blame your upcoming loss at Soul Chaliber on it."

"Cy, I'm serious," Beast Boy whined, "Who is it? It can't be you; I was looking at you when I heard it. Robin? Star? ...Raven?" He punctuated each inquiry with a questioning look at his friends.

"That's it. I can't concentrate in here anymore. I'm going to my room." Raven spoke calmly, even as the snap of her book shutting and her quick, jerky movements betrayed a shoddily hidden annoyance.

"Now look what you've done. Happy with yourself, are you?" Cyborg asked wearily. Beast Boy didn't even seem to be paying attention, which was true because he was thinking of how many other times the common room had been much louder than it was now, and Raven had had absolutely no trouble reading through the noise then. Why now? Unless she was looking for an excuse to leave the room...

"Hey Cy, I'm um... gonna go apologize to Raven now, before she gets real mad at me. No one player practice while I'm gone to warm up for our game, right?" Beast Boy asked with a large grin, even though he knew that was exactly what Cyborg was going to do the instant the doors shut behind him.

"Glad to see you've gained some sense. Can I have your CDs if you don't come back alive?" Cyborg answered cheerfully, completely skirting the question, as expected.

"I'm so glad for your confidence in me." Beast Boy's last comment echoed back into the room as the doors behind him shut with a chillingly final sounding 'whoosh'.

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Raven breathed a sigh of relief as she entered her room and shut the door behind her. She was setting her book, which she wasn't really interested in, back on her shelf when she heard the knock. It was faint, and only came once but she was sure she had heard it. Cyborg or Starfire wouldn't hesitate to bang loudly at her door, and Robin had a crisply distinctive triple knock. That left only one other choice.

"What is it, Beast Boy?" She called from where she sat, carefully adding a tone of soft annoyance to her voice.

"Raven, you should really tell us when you're sick. We're your friends, we'd take good care of you. And I'd make sure Starfire doesn't try one of her native Tamerainian homemade cures on you." Beast Boy gently teased. Somehow it didn't surprise him that she knew it was him standing outside her room any more than it surprised her that he thought she was sick. Not that she could let him think that she was.

"And whatsoever gave you the notion I was sick, pray tell?" Raven asked, a little more harshly than she had spoken last time.

"You left, and the noise wasn't even nearly normal. And if that didn't tip me off the change in your tone just now really would have."

Raven ignored the fact that the first part of his sentence made no logical sense at all, yet she had understood him perfectly, in favor of mentally cursing her lack of control. The fact of the matter was that she was sick with a cold, and her tiredness at faking perfect health in her not-so-perfect condition was causing slight slip-ups. Not enough to be dangerous powers-wise, but enough for someone used to her and paying attention to notice.

"And since when have you been watching me so closely, to notice all this?" Raven masked her genuine curiosity with a tone of dead apathy.

"Since you've been my friend. I can't be worried about a friend's health?" Beast Boy's voice had lost all of its teasing playfulness, and sounded quite serious.

Raven could not bring herself to lie to him, and say she was just fine, but she couldn't find it in herself to voice that she was sick either. Of course it would be that moment that her body decided to desert her.

"A-choo!"

"Raven, are you OK in there?"

He leaned forward and tried listening through her door, and thus was taken completely by surprise when the door opened, and she beckoned him in. After regaining his balance and as much of his composure as he could muster, he quickly walked inside before his nerve could desert him. He still felt like he was doing something wrong in coming inside, even though she had invited him.

"If you so much as breathe a word-" She began.

"Of this to anyone, I'm dead? Wouldn't dream of it." He finished.

"Nobody else needs to know I got sick." She said defensively, slowly walking back to sit on her bed.

"How come your body can't like, just heal itself?"

"Because, physically there's nothing wrong with my body, no cut, no bruise, no scrape. I do have accelerated recovery time, but I can't avoid getting sick for at least some amount of time."

"Still no cure for the common cold." Beast Boy kidded with exaggerated dramatic flare. He was rewarded with a withering glare that he could feel even with her face hidden underneath her hood. He stood at the foot of her bed awkwardly for a minute.

"How about I get you some medicine?" Beast Boy offered.

"No." She flatly refused.

"Come on, it won't taste that bad. I can get you some honey to go with it."

"No." Came her firm refusal again.

"Why? Don't you want to get better?" He asked. Maybe she preferred having the excuse to stay in her room away from him, even if it meant being sick.

"I have very adverse reactions to medicines, especially ones that induce drowsiness, like cold medicines. It has nothing to do with taste or not wanting to get better." She spoke softly and frostily, still not quite fully trusting her voice.

"Then how about some herbal tea?"

"I think I will go get myself some." She said as she attempted to rise. Her efforts were thwarted by a gentle hand on her shoulder, barely touching her but stopping her much more effectively than any show of force could have.

"_I_ think you'll lay here and rest while I go get you some tea. Decaf tea." He spoke gently and firmly at once, almost immediately drawing his hand off her shoulder when he was done speaking, and already heading for the door.

"Just how are you going to explain that you, of all people, are making tea, without telling anyone I'm... sick?" Raven inquired with slight hesitation at the last word. He paused for a moment at her door.

"I bet Cy's already left for one of those mysterious walks he never tells us about. For Robin and Starfire I can just let them fill in the blanks. I annoyed you, you left, I left to apologize, I found you meditating and decided to go prepare a peace offering to prevent you from killing me when I interrupted your meditation. That is, if Rob and Star aren't too busy with each other." Beast Boy finished, and Raven stared at him like he had grown an extra head.

"What? Is something wrong with that plan?" He asked nervously.

"Yes. It made sense and just might actually work." She answered.

"Ouch... I guess I just set myself right up for that one. I'll be leaving now, before I get myself in worse trouble here." He laughed sheepishly, then made a quick exit.

Raven lay back in her bed and thought that it was actually kind of nice to have friends that cared about you.

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Back in the common room, Beast Boy discovered that his assumptions about Cyborg were right. He wasn't there, and the gamestation had been left on a one player setting in the middle of a round. Starfire was in the kitchen area searching for a good snack to share with Robin, who was sitting on the couch with a bored, zoned-out look on his face. Beast Boy ransacked the cupboards to find all the herbs, spices and other assorted stuff needed to make Raven's tea. His concentration was interrupted by a tap on his shoulder that nearly bowled him over, but he managed to not spill any tea.

"Friend Beast Boy, why are you partaking in the drinking of friend Raven's tea?" Starfire asked peering curiously into the now finished, but scaldingly hot, cup of tea.

"I'm not drinking it, Star. I'm making some to bring to Raven." Beast Boy answered wearily.

Star was starting to ask why he would be doing that when a thought crossed her mind that caused an even larger smile to cross her face. She made a strategic and abrupt change of topic, to avoid what she assumed Beast Boy would rather not talk about yet.

"Then would you have a moment's time to assist me in the choosing of snacks good for two people to share? I seem unable to find anything suitable." With that she pouted slightly, but perked right up when he ran over to a cabinet to dig out a bag of something, which he brought over to her. He was holding a red and pink bag covered with hearts and swirly writing spelling out the word 'Sweethearts'.

"Here," Beast Boy said, handing them over to Star, "These ought to do the trick. You can ask Robin about the sayings on the candy, I'm sure he'd be willing to explain."

"Oh, thank you friend! Robin and I shall eat the candy of hearts that are sweet, and we shall be very happy! Thank you so much for your assistance!" And with that Starfire flew up and over to the couch, where an unsuspecting Robin awaited. What neither of them knew was that Beast Boy and Cyborg had pre-prepared that specific bag of Sweethearts by taking all the candies and refilling it with only certain phrases, to help encourage Boy Wonder and his lovely maiden to confess love, or even simply more than just liking. Beast Boy smiled as he walked out the door; Cy had upgraded the security cameras' resolution just for this, so he could get some good footage. Whether it was just entertainment, or was for blackmailing purposes was unclear, but what was crystal clear was that if Robin found out about the footage, Cyborg's 'secret' walks would remain secret no more. For all his obsessive and "Monkish" tendencies Robin really did have some very good detective skills, which he wouldn't hesitate to put to use on his blackmailing friend.

Beast Boy continued down the hallway, but instead of going directly to Raven's room, he made a detour to his own room first. After carefully sliding open the door and wading through the messy room, he grabbed what he wanted and scrammed. On his way out he hit a discarded shoe with his foot. He teetered and wobbled back and forth clutching the cup of slightly cooler tea. After almost two full minutes of thrashing and pin wheeling, he regained his balance by leaning onto his doorframe, then hurried his way down along the silent hallway.

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Raven was starting to get worried, almost fifteen minutes had passed and Beast Boy had yet to return. She should never have let him go get her tea; some of the herbs were dangerous if handled improperly was all that would go through her head as she lay on her bed propped up by numerous pillows. Ironic that the tea that should calm her was the source of her current worry, but there was nothing she could do about the past. She was so deep into her thoughts that she didn't notice him enter until a voice pulled her back out into the real world.

"I've got your tea here, if you want some. Decaf, just what the doctor ordered." Beast Boy put on a jovial face and a light tone, but he was starting to get 'what if?' worries. What if she didn't want tea? What if he messed it up and she hated it? What if she had been delirious when she asked him in, and now was going to defenestrate him for entering her room unbidden?

She sat up carefully and slowly reached out for the cup. A million little things could be wrong with her tea. It could be burningly hot or stone cold. It could be bitter or sour or missing some herbs entirely. At least he got the cup right, which was an encouraging sign.

"Thank you." Raven gave her voice no tone or inflection to betray her slight inner turmoil. Before he could say anything or she could loose her nerve and without even looking at the tea, she raised the cup to her lips and drank, steeling herself for any one of plenty things that were probably horribly botched.

What actually happened when the tea hit her lips shocked everyone in the room, including herself. The one taste possibility in her tea that she had not prepared herself for had been exactly what had happened. And faced with this impossibility, Raven's body did the one thing it could reflexively do to reflect this shock. She sputtered and sprayed her first sip of tea right at Beast Boy's face.

After a moment of either teen being too startled to speak, Beast Boy moved to take the offending tea and leave the room, cursing his eternal optimism and hope.

"No... wait. Please, leave it be." Something in Raven's voice made him pause and look her fully straight in the eye. She lowered her hood with her one free hand, keeping a secure hold on her tea. "Really, I like it. I just... wasn't ready. I didn't think it would taste this good. Almost... perfect." He could tell even with her halting speech that she truly meant what she was saying, no matter what the brown, sticky evidence all over his face said. What he couldn't tell was that she was wondering just how the tea was so good, even better than when she usually made it, though it tasted the same, mostly. She had some small idea, but she wasn't quite ready to put it in words even in her thoughts yet.

At the praise, Beast Boy broke out into a brilliant smile that would have blinded even the sun itself. That much of a compliment from Raven was a big deal for him, even if it was mixed. She was stepping a little bit out of her comfort zone, and he kind of liked it. He dimmed off the smile a bit when he remembered he was still in the room with Raven, but it still remained firmly plastered slightly foolishly on his face.

A thought crossed Raven's mind as she took another sip, but she hesitated slightly to ruin the moment by voicing it. In the end though, her curiosity got the better of her. "Beast Boy, just how do you know so much about my tea? This is exactly how I make it in the morning right down to the cup style, fresh crushed mint leaf and twist of lemon, seed inculded." She spoke with a careful deliberateness, tempering her burning curiosity with the dampening thought that she didn't really want to know.

"I... uh... just got lucky?" His words were more of a question than a statement, seeking her approval.

"No. I don't have this written down anywhere, so you can't have found it by snooping," Raven started. That sure wasn't for lack of trying, Beast Boy thought, but Raven was already continuing. "The only way you could have gotten this so perfectly on the nose would be by either stalker level surveillance," she spoke softly and slightly narrowed her eyes at him because of the first option, "Or the sort of watching only a l-" She cut herself off abruptly, before voicing the second option. She hadn't even realized she was considering that option as seriously, if not more so, than the first. After holding a quick mental powwow with herself and getting an amazing unanimous vote on the matter, she was stunned speechless. After... him, Raven thought that this would ever happen again, and yet here it was even though it couldn't be. And even her anger facet agreed with the rest of her representations, which practically never happened even when Trigon wasn't in control.

Raven's silence and blank stare as starting to disconcert Beast Boy even more than her abrupt stop had. There were a million things she could have been about to say, besides for the one thing he wanted to hear. Lackwit, lamebrain, loser, the list was endless. And things had been going so well, she was loosening up, even if he couldn't tell if it was just because of her cold. She had been drinking the tea, which now was sending up soft puffs of smoke as it cooled between her still fingers, and had been talking so much more to him than usual. The one nagging thought in the back of his mind was that if it had been any one of plenty derogatory remarks she was about to make, why had she stopped? And why did she remain silent so long afterwards? But most importantly, if she had said what he wished she were going to say, how would he have responded? He didn't know the answer, and it discomforted him.

"Hey, Earth to Raven, come in Raven. Is the tea poisonous or something?" Beast Boy asked, waving his arm up and down in front of her face. She blinked and snapped back to reality, where she was sitting on a bed with a cup of tea clutched between her hands, not standing amidst scattered rock formations at the center of a circle of her selves.

"Yes, you poisoned me, I'm dead, and you're still speaking with me. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?" Raven reverted to her almost-natural monotone for her statement.

"Right..." Beast Boy was unsure of how to react to her sudden switch back to her untouchable persona. "So a-"

"If that's a joke, and you try to finish it, you will not see the light of day for several weeks." Raven interrupted in her dead dangerous tone, thankful for the chance to fall back into normality and old habits. He smiled, almost as if he could see her train of thought, and was having a similar one of his own at the moment.

"Don't worry I-" Beast Boy began, only to be cut off once again, but not on purpose this time.

"Achoo!"

With that echoing sneeze, Raven was enveloped in a soft blue glow. It lasted for almost a minute, then slowly faded away into nothing. Beast Boy recognized that glow.

"So, you all better now?" he asked. She looked up wearily, like she had forgotten he was there.

"Yes, my body has finished healing, but I'll need to rest for awhile now." Raven said the words slowly, no louder than she needed to, to be heard.

"So it's the last bit that's a real doozy?" Beast Boy asked, almost sort of understanding.

"For lack of better phrasing, yes." She responded.

"So, I'd better be going now. I'll tell the others not to disturb you for awhile, not that Rob or Star would be likely to be thinking about anything else anytime soon.

Raven could almost hear the nefarious plot behind that, but she was just too tired to ask. Instead she nodded her consent and watched him slip silently out her door, again smiling like a blind fool. She went to set her tea down on her nightstand, realizing that it was still half full. She gazed into the cup and spotted something in it which she hadn't seen before simply because she had never actually looked into the teacup until then.

In her tea floated a large-sized, green 'Sweetheart' candy which was almost dissolved, but still readable. It bore a short, simple, heartfelt message from her tea bringer.

'Smile'

And so she did as she slipped into her bed, the thought of love no longer seeming so preposterous to her and lulling her into a relaxing, hopeful sleep. She could deal with this. She could almost learn to like it.

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So, that's it. Drop me a line if you're interested in the Rob and Star centric and Cy and ? centric accompanying pieces.

Thanks for visiting, have a nice (insert time here).

Bye!

-Kit


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